Tapping VoIP

"The Guardian has learned that police and security agencies have been lobbying ministers and senior officials, expressing fears about the potential for voice-over-internet-protocol technologies to hide a caller's identity. Their aim? To get VoIP providers to monitor calls and find ways to identify who is calling whom - and even record them."

The proposed requirement for all VoIP services to have to provide 999 services would kill any free VoIP service, unless the government is offering to cover the costs. If they want to log and trace VoIP why not Instant Messages? If they want to log and trace IM then what about email… (You get the idea)

Hey. Instead of pushing downwards, how about we push it upwards. Will these regulations cover personal VideoOIP as well as Voice? How about 3D MMRPGs? Will Second Life have to include the ability of the forces of Awe and Boredom to listen in to conversations? Will 2nd Life be forced to include Police phone boxes that can place 999 calls? (Actually that's a brilliant idea. The Police box will of course be bigger on the inside than on the outside)

One thing fascinates me in all this. Take a very P2P VoIP system like Skype with minimal centralisation. Technically, I'm not sure it's going to be possible to tap or to build in a backdoor that isn't fairly obvious and will be discovered quickly. And if that happens, I look forward to the Slashdot story "Skype phones authorities".

You can look at all this as a way to control Telco replacement systems from people like Tescos. But they're only one part of the landscape.

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